Commentaries:
Adam Clarke
I was like a lamb or an ox - Dahler translates, "I was like a fattened lamb that is led to the slaughter." Blayney, "I was like a tame lamb that is led to slaughter." The word alluph , which we translate ox, is taken by both as an adjective, qualifying the noun kebes , a lamb. It may probably signify a lamb brought up in the house-fed at home, ( alluph ), instructed or nourished at home; perfectly innocent and unsuspecting, while leading to the slaughter. This meaning the word will bear in Arabic, for alaf signifies accustomed, familiar, (to or with any person or thing); a companion, a comrade, an intimate friend. I therefore think that kechebes alluph signifies, like the familiar lamb - the lamb bred up in the house, in a state of friendship with the family. The people of Anathoth were Jeremiah' s townsmen; he was born and bred among them; they were his familiar friends; and now they lay wait for his life! All the Versions understood alluph as an epithet of kebes , a chosen, simple, innocent lamb.
Let us destroy the tree with the fruit - Let us slay the prophet, and his prophecies will come to an end. The Targum has, Let us put mortal poison in his food; and all the Versions understand it something in the same way.
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